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Positioning Your Business Globally For 21st Century Success

The U. S. Department of Defense (DOD) owns and
operates the Global Positioning System (GPS),
including 24 satellites, each orbiting the earth every
12 hours, as the graphic above illustrates.

GPS, a navigational system, computes the position
and velocity of things in a highly detailed, three
dimensional way.

The GPS costs $400 million annually, and it is essential
for our national defense.

Civilian GPS usage is increasing rapidly. For example,
many newer cars and boats have GPS navigation
systems to show where you are, where you want to
go, and how to get there.

There are hand held GPS devices, too, priced around
100 dollars.

Let’s apply this GPS principle–positioning–to your
business.

How broad is your present market positioning? Local,
regional, national, international or global?

What are your Business Plan goals? In what direction,
and at what velocity, are you moving toward attaining your
21st Century business goals? And how are you getting
there (strategies and tactics)?

In most cases, your business should be moving toward a
global position.

Why limit your business to a neighborhood, town or
city, region or just one nation? In the 21st Century,
that’s neither necessary nor desirable.

Everything moves and happens much faster in the
21st Century. Now is not a time for dithering slowpokes,
indecisively whiny people, and those clinging to, and living
in, the past (specifically, the 20th Century).

Brian Tracy says that knowledge doubles and triples every
two to three years. If you don’t keep on learning, you will know
less and less of total available knowledge as each new day
dawns.

Yet many snoozing people ignorantly and erroneously
claim that everything is just the same as 100 years
ago, preferring just to market locally, as they always
have done.

What a shame when tradition, provincialism and/or
xenophobia (fear of foreigners), and myopia limit or
impede great global business possibilities.

In the book “The Lexus & The Lemon Tree,” the
author, Thomas L. Freidman, recalls being in Japan,
attending a major corporate event and riding
on a new high speed train.

While riding on the train, he read a newspaper, which
reported on a small incident in an ages old, petty
feud between Palestians and Israelis over ownership
of just one lemon tree.

Absurdly enough, we live in a world where some
invest their time and talent in the high quality, highly
automated, products–while others waste their
time in petty, unresolved squabbles over a single
tree.

After years of research, author Steve R. Covey wrote
“The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness To Greatness.”

The 8th Habit doesn’t replace his book, “The 7 Habits Of
Highly Effective People.” Rather, it takes people already
proficient and effective in all seven habits to their next
level of excellence, which is greatness.

While the 20th Century required lots of physical work, 21st
Century work provides increased opportunity to gain long
term fulfillment, to experience passion, to contribute to
society, and to develop higher levels of human genius as
a “Knowledge Worker.”

This requires a “new mindset and a new skills-set,”
Covey explains.

In the 8th Habit, you discover why you’re here on planet
earth, how to express this “why” as your personal passion,
“finding your voice while inspiring others to find theirs,” as
Covey describes it.

In the 20th Century, only 20 to 30% of value added goods
and services came from knowledge work.

But in the 21st Century, 70 to 90% of value added goods and
services come from knowledge work, which unleashes and
utilizes human potential.

The choice here is yours. Move your mind into the 21st Century
and succeed or stay stuck in the 20th Century and fail in business.

Determine your business global position now–and where you will
take it in the next three years. Rewrite your plans to capitalize on
21st Century opportunities worldwide.

Don’t leave yourself behind in the previous (20th) Century.

Remember the movie “Kate & Leopold?” Leopold was a royal
person from another era, unable to comprehend modern times.
He fell in love with Kate, and they went back in time together,
living happily ever after in the past.

That kind of stuff happens only in the movies. You don’t get the
option of living in the past. You can’t return there, as Kate &
Leopold did.